pantryslut

I missed the rain! Oh no!

It was probably worth it. Today I took an afternoon tour of East Bay Food Sites. First was GB Ratto, where I bought ghee and sardines but admired oh, so much more, from loose bulk pastas and beans (inlcuding tiny white "rice beans" that I'd never seen before) to Valhrona chocolate dust. And to think it's just a walk away from my apartment. How nice.

Then it was onto the Cheese Board, because I have been afflicted with a craving for Oka.

Oka is a cheese from Quebec, and little-known outside Canada as far as I can tell. I first had it at my friend Leslie's house in Toronto. (Another food memory: the guy at the cheese counter in Toronto, offering to teach me Ukranian if I ever came back his way, and selling me the most delectable Cheddar for lunch. He carried Oka, too, of course.) Oka is not exactly one of the Best-Kept Secrets Of The Cheese World; it's nice and all, but not usually spoken of in reverent whispers or anything.

But sometimes my tongue thinks it is the world's most perfect cheese. I don't know why. But I do know that I'm in that mood, because I nearly swooned when I had a taste of it this afternoon.

imnotandrei fought me for the last bite of our sample slice, so we bought half a pound.

"It tastes like home," I whispered into his shoulder, embarrassed at the shout of joy I'd uttered as I polished off my taste. I don't know why I thought that, it doesn't make sense, unless you believe in some mystical version of terroir that Michigan and Quebec share but California does not possess. And I don't. But it does taste like something that reminds me of...I've got it: the Dairy Store at MSU. Which did not carry Oka, but which did (and does still) make its own cheese. Oka has that smooth, glossy texture that reminds me of some of their cheeses. I think. Well, it's definitely something about that texture, anyway, combined with a sharpness of taste, that makes Oka so evocative to me.

We also bought Trigal, a very nice Manchego-ish Spanish cheese, and some Westcombe Cheddar, which the boy liked much more than I did. (There's a musty, fuzzy sort of cheese taste that he likes in quantity, but I like to be present only as a hint. No, I'm not all that fond of blues, either, now that you ask.)

But what I really loved the Cheese Board for was its breads. Or maybe just for the fact that the breads were still warm when I reached behind the plastic shield to pick out my bialyis and such. How I managed to get a whole untouched bagful home, I will never know.

I was also amused by their Raw Milk Manifesto. Which brings back yet another food memory, this time Munich again, sitting in the beer garden near the museums eating a fruit-and-cheese plate. Grapes and something and young raw milk cheeses. A lot of my experiences in Germany runs together in my mind at this point, so I remember the sensation of taste more than the taste itself, and I certainly don't remember what any of the cheeses actually were. I think in fact that I deliberately tried to forget, because I knew it might be years, it might be never, before I had a chance to taste them again. Better to enjoy the moment without trying to preserve it under glass. And so I did.

Forget Proust and his madeleines. For me, the memory-maker is clearly cheese.

Somehow in all of this, my wish to pick up some produce vanished. Tomorrow morning, then. Tonight we eat bread, cheese, and chocolate. (This would be more impressive if the chocolate wasn't in the form of cheapo Halloweeny candy bars.)